Yamaha Motif XS

Dec 13, 2007 2:43 PM

           

FIG. 1: The Motif XS’s front panel just screams “user control.” The eight sliders let you control the volume of various sound elements. The knobs have multiple assignments, and the buttons on the right choose tracks, Voices, or other objects, depending on the current mode.

For years I’ve been an enthusiastic proponent of the software studio. But the Yamaha Motif XS has forced me to rethink my philosophy. The convenience of having everything in one box that I can take to a gig is a powerful enticement—but the key difference for me is how easy the Motif makes it to sketch out good-sounding song ideas quickly. The Motif integrates beautifully with my computer setup, too; it’s the best of both worlds.

The Motif in God’s Eye

The Motif XS is a full-featured workstation featuring sample-playback synthesis, optional user sampling (just add RAM), complex keyboard layouts for gigging, two types of sequencing, a multitrack arpeggiator, and computer interfacing. A full list of comparisons between the various Motif models would take pages, so this review will focus strictly on the XS. It’s available in three models: the XS6 (61 keys), XS7 (76 keys), and XS8 (88 weighted keys).

I received an XS6 for review. It’s heavy and solidly built. The large, high-resolution color LCD is not easy to read at oblique viewing angles, but it’s wonderful if you’re sitting in a normal position. Located beneath it are a dozen function buttons for selecting onscreen menu tabs. The OS is quite complex, but it’s clearly and logically laid out, and I had no trouble navigating.

FIG. 2: The XS6’s rear-panel audio and footpedal control jacks are not unusual, but the Ethernet port is a luxury item that provides direct access to your computer’s hard drive. The blank plate at lower left is for the optional mLAN board, which adds real-time digital audio I/O.

The front panel is studded with almost 100 buttons, most of which have built-in LEDs (see Fig. 1). A bank of eight knobs can be switched to six different groups of clearly labeled functions. Beneath the knobs are eight sliders for controlling the volume of various sound components. Mounted below the pitch-bend and modulation wheels is a short ribbon controller. You can’t assign the eight sliders to send MIDI CC messages, but two of the knobs, two of the buttons, and the ribbon controller are assignable. The keyboard transmits both Velocity and Channel Aftertouch.

Around the back are pairs of main and assignable audio outputs, a headphone output, and stereo audio inputs—all on ¼-inch jacks (see Fig. 2). In addition to a coaxial S/PDIF output and MIDI In, Out, and Thru jacks, you’ll find a trim pot for the audio inputs, two footswitch inputs, two expression-pedal inputs, an Ethernet port, and two USB ports (one for the host and one for a storage device). By removing a blank panel on the XS6 or XS7, you can install an optional mLAN16E2 card ($259), which provides two FireWire ports; the mLAN board is included in the XS8.

The XS ships with no sample RAM, but you can install up to 1 GB. Installation of RAM and the mLAN card were painless. The most significant feature missing from the hardware spec is compatibility with Yamaha’s line of PLG add-on synthesis boards, which can be installed in older Motif models. The XS is strictly a sample-playback synth.

Hearing Voices

The XS’s factory sound set is huge, and the presets are excellent. Yamaha says that the XS has the losslessly compressed equivalent of 355 MB of waveform ROM.

The Voice ROM provides 8 banks of 128 presets each, as well as a General MIDI bank and 64 drum kits. A Category Search utility makes it easy to find the type of Voice you’re looking for. The XS also supplies 3 banks of 128 user-programmable Voice memory slots, along with 32 user drum kits.

The XS is capable of 128-voice polyphony, but the actual number of simultaneous voices you’ll be able to hear depends on how many Elements are used in the Voices you’re playing. The XS uses as many as eight Elements per Voice, and they can be split and layered across the keyboard. Each Element contains its own oscillator, filter, envelopes, and LFO. The Voice as a whole has another LFO, modulation routings, settings for the effects and arpeggiator, and a few other functions.

New in the XS are Expanded Articulation (XA) switches for the Elements. These allow any Element to respond to your keyboard performance in various ways. An Element can play release noises by responding to key up rather than key down, for example, or it can play only when one of the assignable function buttons is pressed, be part of a random or cycling Element group, and so on.

The resonant filter has 18 modes ranging from a 4-pole analog emulation to a response that combines a 1-pole lowpass with a 1-pole highpass. In addition to reverb and chorus, a Voice can have two insert effects routed in series or parallel. Each of the 53 insert-effects types has a handful of useful presets to get you started. The Voice’s common LFO has a user-designable 16-step waveform.

Certain essential modulation routings, such as Velocity to amplitude and to filter cutoff frequency, are hardwired. The Element LFO has three dedicated outputs—one each for pitch, cutoff, and amplitude. The common LFO has a switching matrix that allows it to modulate the pitch, cutoff, or amplitude of any Element. Beyond that, the XS provides a modulation matrix with six routings.

The matrix has 12 possible inputs, including the 2 wheels, the ribbon, Channel Aftertouch, 2 assignable knobs, 2 assignable buttons, and the 2 expression-pedal inputs. Each routing can be switched on or off for each Element, and the list of possible destinations is long. Because you can control certain parameters—including filter cutoff and resonance, envelope ADSR values, and reverb and chorus depth—directly from dedicated front-panel knobs, the matrix isn’t needed for them. Even so, six routings is just not enough; having to choose between using Aftertouch, the ribbon, or an assignable knob, for instance, is frustrating.